Buzz Aldrin salutes the U.S flag on the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission

One of the most famous NASA missions, Apollo 11 took mankind to the surface of the moon for the first time. The astronauts who made that first moonwalk—Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin—have been household names ever since.

Apollo 11 launched from the Kennedy Space Center on July 16, 1969, using a Saturn V rocket loaded with more than 6.5 million pounds of fuel. The legendary moonwalk took place a few days later, on July 20. Leaving Michael Collins in control of the command module, Armstrong and Aldrin took the lunar module to the moon’s surface, where they planted a U.S. flag, took pictures, and collected rock samples, among other tasks.